Rod Choice For River Smallmouth

[bigredbirdfan]

After a very interesting exchange of opinions on line choice for river SM I was curious what everyone's choices are for brands, length and type on spinning, baitcasting and fly rods.

[Gavin]

Spin setups-6' ML Bass Pro Bionic Blades, one with an Abu Soron STX20, and the other with a 2000 series Plueger President.

Baitcasters-5', fast action, rated for 1/8-5/8oz lures. Custom build on a cut down Batson Spinning Rod Blank. Shimano Curado 200e7

4'9" pool cue...for tossing buzzers, spinnerbaits, and crankbaits. Custom build on a $10 blank of unknown origin from Tom Hargrove's bargain bin, Daiwa Reel

6'6 MH, and a Flipping stick for bass boat fishing

Fly Rod- 9' 7wt Winston BIIX, Galvan OB Reel, SA XXD Weight Forward Floating Line, extra spool with a sink tip line.

[MOPanfisher]

Since I am often in a canoe with limited room or at best a very small jon boat on creeks I stay with 6' and under rods. Spinning only for creeks. I always have one med./fast St. Croix with a Pfleuger President and the second rod varies depending on my mood or where we are fishing. Usually it is a med/hvy Fast. Bionic Blade or similar to work heavy cover. If wading I'll just take the one rod and a pocket full of plastics, a small original rapala, and a Rebel Craw. The St. Croix is fun enough with a decent smallmouth on it, and more than enough to pull out a goggle-eye.

[Wayne SW/MO]

My goto baitcasters are a pair of Falcon Low Riders, 6 1/2' with 3" chopped off the butt and Cabelas 6' 3". 2 of them are rated 1/4oz on the low end and 1 is rated 3/16oz. They are all topped with Curado 100b's. My spinning rod is a 6' St Croix medium. My flyrod last year was a cabelas glass and I really liked it, it's an 8wt 7 1/2'. It's slow enough to push deer hair and poping bugs with a nice open loop. At 7 1/2' I can keep the tip protected in my solo canoe, one less thing to worry about. I don't think it's important what spinning reel one uses, or fly reel for that matter. Modern ones are all good when it comes to smallie fishing on our flows. Line is more important then reels, with the exception of baitcasters, IMO.

[ColdWaterFshr]

I'm with you, Ron I don't like ultra-light spinning rods at all, and they really have no application for smallmouth fishing. I like just about any IM-6 med-hvy or med-fast action, 6 foot rod rated for 6-10 lb line. The cheaper the better, although I would never get 2 piece in spinning or baitcasting. On spinning rods, I like a long handle off the back of the reel-seat. Helps me with casting control and I like a longer handle for the way I can set it down on the thwarts of a canoe and the reel not be in the way.

Bait-caster rods, again I like cheap, good graphite, medium to med-heavy action, 6 foot or less, long cork handle. I think I have a $30 Wal-mart rod holding my Shimano Curado. Does okay, but may be a little too stiff.

Fly-rods - my only smallmouth rod is a Sage Fli 7wt that Ness once told me reminds him of the color of the contents of a baby's dirty diarrhea diaper. He's right. It casts like a dirty diarrhea diaper too. It'll throw a honkin streamer or blockhead popper though. Just broke my Sage 5 wt VPS rod tip and that danged lifetime warranty keeps going up. Used to be $25, now its $65. Caught more smallies on the VPS than the FLi, but those were by accident when I was fishing for trout. I hardly string up the fly-rod anymore for smallmouth. Too much work and never proven to me to be as effective as baitcasting or spin-fishing.

[Mitch f]

The cheaper the better, although I would never get 2 piece in spinning or baitcasting.

But how do you hide your rod from your wife in the trunk of the car when you are going on an "outdoor picnic" with the family? This way you don't have to hear "You really didn't bring your fishing rod again did you??"

[Greasy B]

But how do you hide your rod from your wife in the trunk of the car when you are going on an "outdoor picnic" with the family? This way you don't have to hear "You really didn't bring your fishing rod again did you??"

I was just thinking there is no good reason for a two piece rod, darn I'm wrong again.

[Sharps4590]

I only fish with a fly rod. When targeting smallmouth either a Heddon #20, 8 1/2, 3/2 that throws a #6DT quite well and a #7 even better or a 290 South Bend, 7 1/2, 3/2 for a #6. There are a couple other vintage blue collar rods in the quiver I'm going to try this year.

[fishinSWMO]

My favorite spinning rod is a 6 foot bps extreme med.pwr. fast action rated for 4-12 line. I have tried it with braid and several sizes of mono, 6 lb is what usally works the best for me.

My favorite baitcast rod started out 6 foot, but I have had to repair the tip several times and repair the reel seat once. I bought it as a combo years ago from wally world, I belive it is a quantum lite, medium rod. the reel gave up many years ago, but I wish I had bought more just for the rod. Its hard to find a good cheap baitcaster rod that is not to stiff or to limber.

[Al Agnew]

For fishing from the canoe, I like short rods. My topwater rod is a 5 foot baitcast made from a cut down Loomis blank that I've had for many years...if I ever break it I'm going to really miss it. I want the topwater rod to be very short because you can get the right angle with top low to the water when working walking topwaters from the canoe. My second baitcast rod is a Bass Pro Tourney Special medium light 5.5 footer that is mainly for crankbaits. It's a soft rod that works well with cranks. My third baitcaster is a St. Croix 5.5 ft. medium power, which is my spinnerbait rod for the most part.

I carry two spinning rods. A 5.5 ft. St. Croix medium power that mostly gets used with soft jerkbaits. I like being able to skip the Superflukes and such under overhanging limbs with this rod. The other one is a 6 foot Browning rod that is my tube and jig rod.

But when I use the jetboat, I carry all different baitcast rods, all of them longer except for a 5.5 ft. Falcon medium light power that I use for topwaters. The others are a Loomis 6.5 ft. medium for spinnerbaits and a Loomis Crankbait Special for crankbaits. I also was using and really loving a Kistler Helium 6.5 foot medium power rod that I was fishing with jigs, but I broke it a couple weeks ago. By the way, although all those rods are pretty expensive, I got the two Loomis rods on sale cheap, and the Kistler was given to me.